D&D (2024) Challenge Rating (CR) and the 2024 /25 Books

[Cadence]

Am I right that the 2024 books have almost nothing about CRs? It almost reads like they meant to put more in either the DMG or MM and then didn't, or did I miss something?

Player's Handbook

Page 363: "Challenge Rating (CR) summarizes the threat a monster poses to a group of four player characters. Compare a monsters CR to the characters' level. If the CR is higher, the monster is likely a danger. If the CR is lower, the monster likely poses little threat. But circumstances and number of player characters can significantly alter how threatening a monster is in actual play. The Dungeon Master's Guide provides guidance to the DM on using CR while planning potential combat encounters. See also "Stat Block".

Page 375 - Stat Block: "Challenge Rating summarizes the threat a monster poses and is detailed in the Monster Manual."


Monster Manual

Page 8: Says CR is defined in the PHB and guidance on using CRs is in the DMG. It then gives a table that matches each CR to an exact XP amount and has a list of Proficiency Bonuses by CR.

Page 382-384: Table of monsters by CR


Dungeon Master's Guide

Doesn't appear in index.

Pages 56-57 - Creating a Creature: It notes changing ability scores affect various things and can change CR (doesn't say how) and that the various senses don't affect CR.

Pages 114-116 - Combat Encounters: The encounter building is all XP budget and doesn't mention CR except it notes to use CR 0 creatures sparingly and has a quick note that including a monster with CR higher than the party's level might one shot characters or have powers the party can't overcome.

 

[mellored]

Higher CR is more dangerous than lower CR, compared to player level.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. What else where you expecting?

 

[Cadence]

It also feels odd that the XP gaps between rows of the CR to XP table (MM page 8) and those in the XP Budget per Character table (DMG page 115) work out the way they do.

For example:
CR 4 = 1100 / Level 5 high = 1100
(and then going down)
CR 19 = 22000 / Level 20 high = 22000

But in between....
1100 / 1100
1800 / 1400
2300 / 1700
2900 / 2100
3900 / 2600
5000 / 3100
5900 / 4100
7200 / 4700
8400 / 5400
10000 / 6200
11500 / 7800
13000 / 9800
15000 / 11700
18000 / 14200
20000 / 17200
22000 / 22000

 

[Smackpixi]

I don’t have the new books, but didn’t the old ones base all the math parts on XP and also mostly ignore CR as well, CR is the ball parking thing for people who aren’t precise. I’ve never looked at or used any of the rules on encounters. I just attack the party and dial up or dial down depending on how it’s goes; if I’m designing encounters to fit the party. Or adjusting encounters to fit the party. If I’m not, well then it doesn’t matter, they get what they get. I know all these rules matter to others, I just don’t see the point, I eyeball/ballpark stuff and it goes fine.

 

[Cadence]

Higher CR is more dangerous than lower CR, compared to player level.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. What else where you expecting?

It felt odd that they said:
"The Dungeon Master's Guide provides guidance to the DM on using CR while planning potential combat encounters."
but the rules for doing so just used the XP.

Similarly that:
"Challenge Rating summarizes the threat a monster poses and is detailed in the Monster Manual."
but it is essentially just a CR to XP table.

It felt like they were building it up for CR to mean more in and of itself than just a shorthand for the monster XP. And since the encounter building XP table has different spreads from the CR to XP table, it is only an ordering of them and not directly useful for judging what level of characters a CR goes with anyway.

 

[Cadence]

I don’t have the new books, but didn’t the old ones base all the math parts on XP and also mostly ignore CR as well, CR is the ball parking thing for people who aren’t precise. I’ve never looked at or used any of the rules on encounters.

I confess to not looking before either, and so don't know what the 2014 ones did.

I just attack the party and dial up or dial down depending on how it’s goes; if I’m designing encounters to fit the party. Or adjusting encounters to fit the party. If I’m not, well then it doesn’t matter, they get what they get. I know all these rules matter to others, I just don’t see the point, I eyeball/ballpark stuff and it goes fine.

I just eyeballed before to -- but thought with the new books I would check out what the rules had. I think I will continue eyeballing.

 

[Yaarel]

I would be more interested in dropping "CR" altogether.

Even using XP as the basis is fine. Maybe even ideal. It is highly granular, and scales perfectly. A feature that is worth a certain amount of XP can be a big deal at low levels, but trivial at high levels.

Most importantly, XP is a transparent "currency". What XP is has clear meaning, and value.

 

[Cadence]

I would be more interested in dropping "CR" altogether.

Even using XP as the basis is fine. Maybe even ideal. It is highly granular, and scales perfectly. A feature that is worth a certain amount of XP can be a big deal at low levels, but trivial at high levels.

Most importantly, XP is a transparent "currency". What XP is has clear meaning, and value.

I think the big thing there is getting people to think in terms of XP as a benchmark. What does a 20, 50 200, 500, 2000, or 10,000 XP creature like?

(What would it be like to think of characters as XP thresholds I stead of giving them numbers for levels)?

 

[Distracted DM]

I would be more interested in dropping "CR" altogether.

Even using XP as the basis is fine. Maybe even ideal. It is highly granular, and scales perfectly. A feature that is worth a certain amount of XP can be a big deal at low levels, but trivial at high levels.

Most importantly, XP is a transparent "currency". What XP is has clear meaning, and value.

CR has an XP equivalent- I guess the thing is that CR was originally "this creature will drain 1/4 of the resources of a party of that level." That was the whole basis of 3e and CR, iirc.

You could just cut CR out ofc, and say "this is a 10k XP creature," but CR was supposed to give you a guideline of what level characters you could challenge with this CR# creature. Buuut that really doesn't hold up at all in 5e, where the characters are punching well above their supposed weight class.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

It felt odd that they said:
"The Dungeon Master's Guide provides guidance to the DM on using CR while planning potential combat encounters."
but the rules for doing so just used the XP.

Similarly that:
"Challenge Rating summarizes the threat a monster poses and is detailed in the Monster Manual."
but it is essentially just a CR to XP table.

It felt like they were building it up for CR to mean more in and of itself than just a shorthand for the monster XP. And since the encounter building XP table has different spreads from the CR to XP table, it is only an ordering of them and not directly useful for judging what level of characters a CR goes with anyway.

It was the same in the 2014 books. So it doesn’t seem odd. The reference to the DMG is probably about converting CR to XP and then using that for your encounter budget